


Melissa doesn't even like cheese

by possiblywonderful



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Humor, Love Confessions, M/M, Romance, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:56:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possiblywonderful/pseuds/possiblywonderful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So they had other stuff to do. What’s so bad about that?”<br/>“Scott said he still needs to buy a package of sandwich cheese for his mom. It’s eleven o’clock in the night, Derek. No one needs to buy a package of sandwich cheese at this hour.”<br/>“Maybe she works late and craves sandwich cheese when she gets home and Scott forgot to buy it. You know how scatterbrained he sometimes is”, Derek shrugs.<br/>“His mom doesn’t even like cheese.”<br/>Derek rolls his eyes and murmurs something that sounds a lot like <i>idiot</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Melissa doesn't even like cheese

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Stiles.”

“What?”

“…nothing.”

They fall silent again, resuming to watch the movie. Until a few moments later, Stiles utters yet another absentminded _huh_ and Derek just can’t take it anymore.

“Stiles, I swear. If you don’t either stop it or tell me what’s bothering you, I will shut you up.”

“Geesh, alright. It’s not like I did it on purpose, okay?”

“Twelve _huh_ ’s in the last twenty minutes?” Derek's bordering on the edge between mildly and very annoyed.

“It’s just strange, okay?”

“What’s strange?”

“Oh come on, don’t tell me you didn’t think it was strange yourself.” Stiles eyes him sceptically.

“Stiles. What. Is. Strange?”

“Okay okay, Mr Grumpypants. I just think that it’s strange for the entire pack to just disappear. Like, out of nowhere.” Stiles looks at Derek as if it’s not for one second debatable that this is one of the weirder pack-related incidents that happened to them in the recent months and not like Derek thinks totally normal and not questionable at all.

“They didn’t. They left. They even used the door.” Derek raises his right eyebrow, nodding his head towards the entrance area.

“Yes, because thankfully, there’s finally is a door to use now.” Despite the possibly hurtful implication of the remark he just made, Stiles smiled. A few years ago, Stiles would’ve earned himself a shove into a random object or at least a growl for such a comment because back then, Derek avoided talking about the past of this house. But after they completely renovated the entire house and turned it into something you could easily call a home again.

“Which is a wonder, considering your inability to order stuff online.” Derek snarked back.

“Me?! It was Scott who messed up here. Even though I have no clue how he did that. All I told him to do was to click _OK_ so the order would’ve been confirmed and sent. I really don’t know how he managed to mess up so greatly with clicking _one_ button.”

“Do you really want me to believe that the delivery of a pink see-through plastic door was Scott’s fault?”

“Yes. Because I’m the internet genius here and you know that. Think of all the times my research abilities saved your sorry ass. Or rather, asses. Let’s use plural here since I quite often saved the entire pack with my genius.”

“Did I miss _praise yourself rotten_ day again”, Derek deadpans.

“I can order you a new calendar online. Just yesterday, I saw an awesome _Dora the Explorer_ one for just three dollars. Dora and you can explore all the exciting new things together!” Stiles teasingly nudges Derek’s side with his elbow.

“Thanks. I’ll stick with my _An Insult a Day_ calendar though.”

It was a Christmas gift from Jackson who said like this, even though it’s highly unlikely, Derek won’t ever be out of ways to provoke them. _Great for training sessions too_ , Stiles had chimed in back then. He’d earned himself stares from everybody else in the room except Derek who had just nodded with a pleased smile.

“Aww, too bad. But back to the topic at hand. They, one after the other, got up and excused themselves and left. And some of the excuses sucked. Big time.”

“So they had other stuff to do. What’s so bad about that?”

“Scott said he still needs to buy a package of sandwich cheese for his mom. It’s eleven o’clock in the night, Derek. No one needs to buy a package of sandwich cheese at this hour.”

“Maybe she works late and craves sandwich cheese when she gets home and Scott forgot to buy it. You know how scatterbrained he sometimes is”, Derek shrugs.

“His mom doesn’t even like cheese.”

Derek rolls his eyes and murmurs something that sounds a lot like _idiot_.

“Sorry? What did you say? Unlike you, I don’t have super hearing.”

“Nothing.”

“ _Nothing_ seems to be your new favourite word. What happened to _no_ or the good old _shut up_?”

“Trying to be versatile. And _shut up_ are two words.” Derek smirks at him. He does that more often now.

“With you, it’s more like one unit of words that has such a strong relationship with each other that they…

“Shut up, Stiles”, Derek says but there’s no heat behind it.

“Awww, getting nostalgic here. And for the record, I know shut up are two words. I’m going to college, you know.”

“Not sure how you made it in, to be honest.” Derek earns himself a punch in the shoulder for that.

“I know you don’t mean that and I know you’re proud of me for making it in.” Stiles preens at him with the biggest smile he can muster up.

Suddenly, Derek hesitates a little, turning his head towards Stiles fully now. “I am”, he admits thoughtfully after a while, looking straight at his opposite.

For once, Stiles chooses not to say anything straight away but to let Derek’s words sink in first. After a while, he looks at Derek who has turned towards the TV again and says “Thank you” with a small but honest smile on his lips. He knows how difficult it still is for Derek to voice out his feelings. Not something like being annoyed or being hungry or tired but the ones that go deep, that concern Derek’s very being.

Stiles never pushed Derek to tell him anything, he always kind of deducted what Derek felt like at a specific moment and acted accordingly which has been right most of the time. But like that, he appreciates moments like these even more. He has put these little snippets of words, of images and of feelings in a little mental box to keep them close to his heart. Like the time Derek told him _I’m proud of you_ on the day of their graduation. Or when Derek silently said _thank you_ and laid his hand on the small of Stiles’ back every time Stiles had put flowers close to the house every year on the day of the fire and the day Laura died. Or the time Derek held him back and said _stay_ after the final fight with the alpha pack and Stiles attempted to go home when everybody else stayed because he thought he doesn’t belong like they did.

It’s moments like these that Stiles feels especially close to the pack but even more so Derek. When they got to know each other first, Stiles struggled with understanding Derek, let alone getting close to him. But after years of fighting together, nearly dying with or for each other, saving each other or simply being around each other, Stiles knows he’s close to Derek. It’s a comfortable yet exciting closeness that changes all the time but never into something negative and it’s always something he can’t quite put a finger on. He knows for sure it’s there but he can’t define it because there simply is no label for what he and Derek are.

After several seconds have passed, they still look at each other, not breaking the silence just yet.  Gentle smiles are forming on both their faces and Stiles feels the low thrum of excitement again. A few months ago, he’d noticed it for the first time. It was after an extensive training session in the woods where the rain had turned the walk back to Derek’s house into a slippery ordeal. Stiles managed to keep himself upright until he slipped gloriously a few meters away from the house and would’ve fallen into the mud face-forward if Derek wouldn’t have caught him with his arm around his waist. After that, Stiles felt the jittery feeling in his stomach every so often when Derek did something out of the ordinary or paid his undivided attention to something Stiles did or said. It happened more often now, especially after most of the pack moved away for college. Stiles was the furthest away at Yale. His dad had been over the moon for the better part of two months after Stiles had been accepted. But studying there also meant he was on the other side of the country and only got to go home a couple of times a year, unlike most of the others who were home in Beacon Hills a few times a month.

He missed them like crazy and enjoyed his stays even more, trying to spend as much time with everyone as possible. But thankfully, they had Skype. Before he moved to New Haven, he taught his dad how to use it and since then, they skyped about two to three times a week. Stiles never believed the people who said they grew even closer with their parents after they moved out but it was actually true. He’d gotten along well with his dad when he was still living at home but now he was really close with him.

What he didn’t expect though was him and Derek being in such close contact too. They texted all the time, about small stuff like Derek being out of food again because the pack visited him and ransacked his fridge or Stiles running over the entire campus because he forgot his book for class. They even skyped.

Derek Hale uses Skype. When Stiles met Derek, they hardly exchanged enough words in a week to fill a text. Now they talked for more than an hour on Skype. Sometimes even two days in a row. They send each other recipes for dished they tried out, songs they just listened to and liked or snapshots of places they’ve been to. Stiles thinks they want to share little pieces of their lives apart from each other so they don’t drift apart too much. They wouldn’t really, even without their constant talking, writing and texting but Stiles wouldn’t trade what they have for anything.

Stiles hadn’t realised it happening but by now, Derek was an inherent part of his life. It got a point where quite often, Stiles thought _Oh god, I need to tell Derek about this_ instead of _Oh god, I need to tell Scott about this_. That didn’t mean he and Scott were not as close anymore. In fact, they were closer than ever but Scott’s and his relationship just wasn’t like Derek’s and his relationship.

It’s not like Stiles was able to define what Derek and him were, not even that he wanted to define it just yet. But he knew it was something special and exciting and thrilling. He knew Derek filled a lot of his thoughts and he knew Derek thought about him too but he wasn’t sure if it’s the same way Stiles thought about him.

It’s as if he is standing in front of a door that leads into a new, miraculous world full of wonders and good things but he was too scared or hesitant to open that door, afraid of maybe losing what they had so carefully put together.

It was a rather irrational fear, Stiles knew that. Derek wouldn’t drop him or push him away if Stiles tried to find out if Derek maybe felt the same for him. But he wouldn’t want to risk it either. Especially since he himself didn’t even know what exactly he felt for Derek. It was definitely more than friendship but using the word love felt like it was a little too much a little too early.

Stiles only snapped out of his thoughts when Derek reached for the remote control to turn the movie back on.

“Huh.”

“What is it this time?” Derek’s tone was still gentle but there was a hint of amusement too.

 “Didn’t realise you paused it.”

“It wouldn’t make any sense to not pause it when _you’re_ not paying any attention to the movie you made _us_ watch.”

“Yeah. Right. The thing is that about 95% of _us_ left one after the other about 30 minutes ago. And it’s pack movie night, someone had to choose a movie because otherwise, it would’ve ended in a massacre. So please don’t be mad if I don’t get why they all left when the actual plan or purpose of movie nights is to be together and, well, watch a movie.” Stiles gestured from the TV to the door and back.

“I do get it and I’m not mad at you.”

Stiles hummed and nodded, turning his attention back to the TV.

For a while, they silently watched the movie. Even though Stiles wasn’t able to fully pay attention after his head had plunged him in this massive pool of feelings for Derek and insecurities and unlike most of the times he had thought about this, Derek was now sitting right beside him which made it about a thousand percent harder to concentrate on anything else apart from being hyper aware of Derek.

The way his chest moved when he was breathing, the way he ever so often glanced towards Stiles, the way his body was spreading warmth like a furnace, the way Derek was just Derek without actually doing something.

The more Stiles had realised his feelings for Derek were growing, the more he became aware of Derek’s physique. It’s not like Stiles didn’t realise from the beginning onwards that Derek was drop-dead gorgeous. What has changed is that he was now attracted to him. Like, a lot.

“Should I turn it off?”

Stiles snaps out of his thoughts and stares at Derek. “What? The movie? No. Why?”

“Because since I turned it back on, you hardly even looked at the screen.”

“Of course I did.”

Derek eyes him sceptically.

“Most of the time.”

Derek still looks sceptical, hums a doubtful _mhm_ this time though.

“Every now and then?”

“No, not even close.”

“Okay, maybe I was kind of… I was thinking, okay?” Stiles hoped his desperation to get out of this topic was not showing too much. Even though Derek could read him like a book.

“While staring at me? Does it help you think better when you look at me?”

“Yes. No! I mean… shit. Just… look. I’m still a little out of it, I just got here this morning and the change of scenery, as awesome as it is, is fussing me up every time for at least a day.” Stiles shrugs and smiles at Derek apologetically.

“That’s not all of it though, is it?” Derek pauses the movie again, puts the remote on the coffee table and turns so that he’s now fully facing Stiles.

“Maybe?” Stiles fumbled with his hands, his gaze cast downwards.

Derek didn’t seem like he was about to speak up so Stiles, with all the nervousness he felt in this moment, kept talking.

“I’m just… all of this somehow gets to me, you know?”

“Being home?”, Derek asked.

“Kind of? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love to be home. But it just proves every time how much I miss my dad and all of you and Scott and… and you. And now that I’m actually here and we get to spend time, they all suddenly just leave and…” Stiles still keeps his gaze averted, not looking at Derek. Maybe he’s too afraid to show how shy he is about this. But maybe it’s more his fear of blurting out with his feelings once he meets Derek’s gaze. “I love going to Yale, just being there is awesome and New Haven’s great too. But you’re not around and even though we skype and all that, sometimes it’s just not enough.” Only after finishing, Stiles fully realised that he phrased this rather ambiguously. _You_ usually implies _all of you here_ which is probably what most people would get out of this. But Derek wasn’t most people and _you_ could just as easily mean _you, Derek_.

For a while, Derek didn’t say anything. The silence stretched so far that Stiles was about a breath away from making light-hearted joke to cover up his insecurity, rejecting his confession to be irrelevant.

But Derek speaks up.

“Stiles…” He lets his hand slide over, taking Stiles’ fidgeting hand in his. “They didn’t leave because they don’t want to spend time with you. It took me some time to convince them to leave.”

This startles Stiles. “What? Why would you do that? It’s not like I’ve got all the time in the world. The semester break is not as long as it feels. It’s usually over in the blink of an eye and cancelling pack movie night is so not something I appreciate.”

“I’m not as selfless as some people think when it comes to you.” Derek looks him straight in the eye. Suddenly, Stiles was not so sure about some things anymore.

“What do you mean?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“I thought it’s about time that we stopped pretending that some things… feelings between us don’t exist.”

For all Stiles could tell, his heart was trying to explode out of his chest and it felt like he had at least a minor stroke. “But I thought you… it’s a one-sided thing… you don’t…”

“I do. I do more than I myself can comprehend at this point. All I know for sure is that I keep thinking about you constantly, sometimes at the most random times. That you’re the one I want to tell about things first, that I keep thinking about what you would say and how you’d probably laugh about things that happen around here and how I miss hearing you laugh right next to me so much that I think I can’t wait for our skype date at nights and that I just want to call you right away. Hell, sometimes I do exactly that. I miss you as much as you seem to miss me and I… Stiles…”

Derek heaves out a heavy sigh, pausing for a fleeting moment in which he just looks at Stiles, stroking his thumb over the back of Stiles’ hand.

“I never pictured it to be like this and I feel like I’m… overwhelmed by what I’m feeling. It maybe even scares me a little… and the possibilities that are… You are…”

“I… I am?” Stiles’ voice quiveres and his nerves were stretched to breaking point.

“All I know for sure right now is that I want to be with you. I don’t know how it would work out if we’d tried it but I know that I want to try it more than anything. I want it so bad and if your feelings for me are anything like the feelings I have for y…”

Stiles stopped Derek mid-sentence by throwing himself at him, hugging him tightly and resting his forehead against Derek’s. “You have no idea how much I wished for you to say this and how damn afraid I was about telling you”, he breathed against Derek’s lips.

“If your heart rate and the way you’ve glanced over to me when you thought I didn’t notice since the moment you arrived yesterday are any indication for it, I think I do.” A small, content smile hushes over Derek’s lips while he pulls Stiles onto his lap, closing his arms around his waist.

“I hope you’re able to afford a private jet because the travel costs will be ten times higher from now on.”

“We’ll figure something out, okay?” Stiles can feel Derek’s breath on his skin and his warm hand slide under his shirt, gently caressing his lower back.

“Yeah”, he whispers and closes the last few centimetres between their lips for a kiss.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The An Insult A Day calendar actually exists :)  
> This story has been posted to my Tumblr also. You can find it [here](http://possiblywonderful.tumblr.com/post/45307630823).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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